Little Maids All In a Row
by Chloerules4eva
Summary: You lose so much with Torchwood, and Tosh knows better than most  -  please don't read if you don't like sad stuff


"I'm so sorry Tosh." Gwen says, reaching out to pull her into her arms.

Tosh pushes her away, and while hurt at this, Gwen says nothing.

_Mary Mary, quite contrary_  
_how does your garden grow?_  
_With silver bells and cockle shells_  
_and pretty maids all in a row_

She finds herself in the Mortuary again, reaching out her fingers to gently stroke the cool, hard metal.

If she closes her eyes, she can pretend she's tucking them sweetly to bed.

Safe dreams, sleep well. Don't wake Mummy and Daddy up with too much crying in the night.

But oh, they'll never cry.

There's an entire section dedicated to them, her babies, and they're not alone. It's like Torchwood's little nursery, only the little cries you often hear are not real, just ghosts. Not ghosts of the past, not memories, but ghosts of what could have been, should have been. She sometimes wonders if they're her babies' cries she hears, or the other babies who have been lost over the hundred years that Torchwood has been around.

She can't decide which is worse.

Owen finds her down there three hours later, and joins her in her silent epitaph.

Eventually it gets to much for him and he takes her by the hand.

"Time to go home Tosh." He says, and she follows his lead without resistance.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

She takes the week off work; compassionate leave. Not much compassion in Torchwood, there's never any time for it, so it's three weeks late because of yet another emergency, but she's used to it by now. Shes been at Torchwood for years, shes learnt the hard way how to leave grief for another day.

She sits in the park, and sees a horde of women wielding prams, and sweet little children in dresses and dungarees. She watches and learns their names one by one, fusing them to memory. A couple of the names shes memorised already, from reading too many baby books. She manages somehow to hold it together, until she sees a three year old japanese girl. Then she has to go home.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

Tosh hates the sight of Gwen when she and Owen start work again.

She's never hated and envied someone so much in her entire life, not even the bullies from her childhood who always had so much more than her, or the countless women Owen loved long before he ever loved Tosh back.

Gwen softly strokes her heavily pregnant stomach without thinking. Tosh's fists tighten.

It would always be Gwen, wouldn't it? The one with all the luck.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

She goes back down to the mortuary when everyone's out, and counts every single casket. She falters at the sixth. It's too new, too raw. She can still feel phantom kicks when she forgets it's gone, it aways knocks her back to reality. Harsh, cruel reality.

She counts again.

One, the very first. Mei. Lost to Torchwood. Two, Natsuki, the second, no less painful than the first. Also lost to Torchwood.

Three and four, Sayuri and Cho. The twins. Owen says stress. Identicle or fraternal? Tosh will never know.

Five and six. Yuri. Hana. She shouldn't have come in to work those days.

Jack finds her this time, not Owen. He wants to help her, but he can't. The world's at stake, it always is with Torchwood, so he tells her to get back to work and leaves.

As if she needs any more reason to hate him.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

Sometimes, when she can't sleep at night, she dreams of them. She gives them the personalities they should have had, and imagines them growing up. Mai would have been the Doctor, following in her father's shoes. Natsuki would have been a traveller, coming home every six months with stories of lost civilisations, and tidbits about her friends all riddled across the globe.

Sayuri and Cho, they'd have joined Torchwood. They'd have saved the world more times then they could count.

Yuri was gonna be a dancer.

Hana was going to be the baby. Tosh didn't know quite what she'd be when she grew up, only that she would the baby of the family, the one everyone loved for being young and sweet. Maybe Tosh didn't believe she would grow up, like all mothers believe of their youngest.

Tosh dreams such intricate details, she even begins dreaming up spouses, and grandchildren, and houses in the countryside with windchimes and pets.

Then the alarm goes off, and she remembers.

She feels cheated of all she might have had.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

"I know Tosh, I know." Owen says, holding her close while she cries. "You don't think you're the only one still hurting, do you?"

She know she's not. He might not have bourne them but he'd loved them all the same, she knows this, yet she can't help pushing him away.

"You should've saved them." She hisses.

Owen steps back as if punched, but doesn't fight back. If anything that hurts Tosh most of all, the fact that he won't fight back.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

Ianto makes her coffee while they wait. They're the only two not in the medical bay, but they can still hear what's going on.

Gwen's been screaming for hours, and Tosh wishes more than anything they could swap places. That she could be the one suffering labour.

Physical pain would be so much better than this.

"It gets easier." Ianto promises, and of course he'd know. He lost Lisa because of Torchwood. "Not better, but easier."

Tosh can't help but wonder.

"Do you think you'll ever leave Torchwood?"

Ianto ponders this.

"No." He finally decides. "Why, do you?"

She doesn't say anything.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWT_

She doesn't go down to meet Gwen's baby when she's born, she leaves a congratulatory note and goes home. They don't like it much, but they understand.

She comes back three days later, holding Owen's hand tightly, and there they are, gushing over the pink little thing.

"She's called Anwen." Jack says proudly, his eyes are full of tears and Tosh's hatred softens.

She can't help feeling guilty for hating them.

They never wanted Tosh to suffer miscarriages. They never asked for an immortal child who would never die, while hers' fell one by one.

"She's beautiful." She says, and thinks of her own babies, all beautiful in their own individual way.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

She hands in her notice, and Jack struggles to take it in.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm pregnant again." She says. She doesn't have to explain. She's lost too much to Torchwood, and taken up too much room in the mortuary.

Technically she should be retconned, and there's a part of her that wishes she could be, the part that wants to forget her loss and pain. But she doesn't want to forget them, as much as it hurts, and Jack doesn't bring it up. Mei and Natsuki, Cho and Sayuri, Hana and Yuri. How could she possibly forget?

She loves them too much.

There's still a place for her in Torchwood after it's born, Jack promises, but Tosh knows there won't be. She'd still be gambling everything, and she wants this baby more than she wants Torchwood.

Owen's going to stay though, which she understands. Their relationship is only just starting to recover from their losses, and she knows it's important for him to stay just as he knows it's important for her to go. They'll fit their life in around it somehow, they always do. It didn't work for Gwen and Rhys, but then, Gwen never really loved him, while Owen means all the world to Tosh.

_TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW_

Before she leaves she goes down to the mortuary one last time. She counts each casket, calling them cradles in her head, and slowly hums as if lulling them to sleep.

It's goodbye, for now at least. Maybe when the baby's all grown up she'll be able to come back, but until that day she'll stay away. The baby who lived shouldn't live in the shadow of those that didn't.

She's strangely hoping it's a boy, she hasn't had much luck with girls.

She blows each one soft kisses, and goes upstairs.

"Are you ready to go?" Owen asks. So serious, where did the joker from their early years go?

Tosh gingerly touches her stomach.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

_Mary Mary, quite contrary_  
_how does your garden grow?_  
_With silver bells and cockle shells_  
_and pretty maids all in a row_


End file.
